


Can you see the panic inside?

by fivefeetapart



Category: Brooklyn Nine-Nine (TV)
Genre: Anxiety, Comfort, F/M, I hate tagging okay, Jake calms amy down, Jakes POV, Kashoot me, One Shot, Panic Attack, Post Prison, does that even count
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-02
Updated: 2019-10-02
Packaged: 2020-11-22 02:57:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,025
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20867078
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fivefeetapart/pseuds/fivefeetapart
Summary: When Amy starts to climb up on the Santiago-panic-scale he knows.Aside from the whole singing and braiding thing, Jake can see other things. He can see her getting scared, panicked, stressed. He can see it slowly building up in the minutes, hours, sometimes even days. It’s those little things you might not notice if you don’t know her that well. But after so many years he can see.The little signs.Or; Jake calms Amy down from a panic attack.





	Can you see the panic inside?

**Author's Note:**

> Title from 6/10 by Dodie of course.
> 
> I got the idea for this a while ago when I was reading fic from Amy's perspective having Jake calm her down and I got curious what that would look like from Jake's pov. Then today I wrote it to prove to myself I wasn't losing writing because I'd written something for school that I wasn't happy with at all.
> 
> Please take care of yourself and do not read this if you feel uncomfortable in any way, because it's about anxiety and seeing I'm in a fairly good place right now I'm comfortable enough to write about it, but you must look out for yourself and not trigger anything that doesn't need triggering.

When Amy starts to climb up on the Santiago-panic-scale he knows.

Aside from the whole singing and braiding thing, Jake can see other things. He can see her getting scared, panicked, stressed. He can see it slowly building up in the minutes, hours, sometimes even days. It’s those little things you might not notice if you don’t know her that well. But after so many years he can see.

The little signs.

The way her eyes start to shrink into her head. Flashing around nervously more than usual. The way she starts to tremble more little by little until she’s full on shaking. He hears the way her breathing starts to speed up.

And seeing it hurts.

It hurts to see the person you love most hurting. It hurts to be able to do so little about it until it’s too late. It hurts that no matter what way he tries to comfort her, it falls away at the sign of her slightly glazed over eyes and the way it takes her a few seconds to even hear him. It hurts when he says it’ll be okay, tells her he really believes it, she barely even hears him. Too tangled up in her fear and anxiety to step out. He knows cages from having gone to prison, but he can’t imagine how much it hurts to be locked up into yourself with just your bad thoughts getting through to you.

(Or maybe he does, solitary will do that to you, it locks you up with just your own bad thoughts getting through.)

The thing that hurts most, though, is how helpless he is.

The person he loves most has to walk around with all this pain in her heart, she has to deal with it on a day to day basis, and he can’t take it away from her no matter how badly he wants to. All Jake can do is be there for her. Rub Amy’s back and hug her. Make her tea and talk her out of a spiral. Take her binders away at 3am and then guide her to bed. Tell her it’ll be okay over, and over, and over again, even though it might not get through to her until much later. 

Jake can try.

-

“Jake?”

Amy’s voice is weak and shaking. He looks up from his phone. She’s standing in front of the couch which he is sat on. Her right hand is on her left elbow and he can see she’s digging her nails in her bare skin. She’s wearing one of his NYPD T-shirts and at any other moment he’d marvel at how beautiful she is, but now all he can see is the look on her face. He knows that look and it makes the panic crawl over his skin as it settles into a stingy knot in his stomach.

“Amez, what’s going on?”

A tear rolls down her cheek as an answer.

Jake stands up, stressed at what to do next. He knows she’s having a panic attack, her breathing is loud and fast and she’s shaking. They’ve been here before, he’s helped her through before. But every single time it happens feels like the first time again.

“What can I do for you?” He asks.

He puts a hand on her shoulder to let her know he’s there. To make her feel he loves her. To make sure she knows that she’s going to get through and she’s going to make it out alive to the other side where things are clear again.

She takes a small step closer to make her nose touch his chin.

He pulls her into a hug.

Jake knows this. He’s been here thousands of times before. He puts one hand on the back of her head and one on the small of her back. Amy takes one big sob and then pushes herself into him. He holds her tight. And she holds onto him like he’s a lifeline. Maybe he is at this moment.

“It’s gonna be okay. I’m here. I love you.” He mumbles it into her hair on repeat.

“I love you, Amez. No matter what they throw at us, no matter what we have to go through, I love you and I wouldn’t want any one else at my side to fight the world with.”

Jake isn’t sure if his words are even getting through to her, but it doesn’t matter because it helps him to tell her this. It helps him to get past his own hurt of seeing her hurt. Amy Santiago is his best friend, the love of his life, and the best thing that’s ever happened to him. He can only hope he’s the same to her. But at this moment it doesn’t matter. Nothing matters but Amy. He’s holding her tight and he’s stroking her hair.

“It’s going to be okay.”

Amy takes a deep breath against his chest and takes her arms from in between them to put them around Jake.

“It’s gonna be okay.” She says soundlessly.

“It’s gonna be okay.” He agrees.

Then he pulls her with him onto the couch behind him.

It takes a moment for them to settle in comfortably, but Amy ends up sitting as close to Jake as possible. Her head resting on his chest and his arms around her. Her breathing is still too fast, and she’s still shaking, but something in the air has changed.

Jake no longer feels helpless.

He’s doing the best he can and that’s enough. He loves her and his love is good. It’s enough and it’s not suffocating. It’s not too little and not too much.  
He whispers three more I love you ’s into her hair and he accompanies them with three kisses.  
Slowly, bit by bit, big sigh by big sigh, Amy’s breathing slows down.

Jake doesn’t know how much time passes spent in silence and he doesn’t care. He’s going to let her take the lead to show him what she needs.  
Then when Amy breaks the silence, her voice is almost deafening clear.

“You mean the world to me, Jake, thank you.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed it, if you did please let me know by giving me kudos or leaving a comment telling me your favourite lines or just noice and I'll love you forever! You can find me on tumblr also @fivefeetapart. 
> 
> Little personal thing, I'm going to be co-writing my school's theatre club's play!! I'm really excited but also really frightened because I've never written script before! So yeah interesting to see how that goes.


End file.
